EAST COAST BLIZZARD DESTROYS RAIL ROAD MUSEUM

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from the weight of all the snow i just heard the news that the roof collapsed on the railroad museum in baltimore. i guess its to early to tell but for the baltimore locals. will they rebuild?. and when its this bad, 4 feet in some spots with drifts up to 8 feet does regular fr8 traffic hault?

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Freights attach snowplow units to the front of trains, or run a "snowplow extra" which is a regular crew running just a rail plow to clear the lines. Snowplows are their own entire car, with a cab and a huge scooped front like a blade.

It takes ridiculous drifts to pose a problem for freights. But winter weather is still a pain in the ass for railroads. Ice can build up enough to derail an engine, or freeze a switch in one position. Up north you sometimes see propane-fueled switch heaters, which is basically a row of small gas flames down low near the rails, keeping the switch from getting iced up and therefore stuck. They make a weird whistling noise when in use.

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Lastnight I waited by the window all night to catch a glimpse of an engine pile through the 5ft drifts that have accumulated along side the track...Near sleep I heard the faint highball of an Amtrak in the distance..."Are they actually running?...At this time of night? In these weather conditions?" Well I was caught off guard. Cause I wanted to flick it (if you haven't seen an engine hit snow, it's awsome). But I just watched it barrel through and make a huge splash of powder from the window. Kick ass seabass. :king:

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last year during a blizard shit went off the tracks by me. it was a mess. all these hoppers and boxcars with holes in em. maybe it wasnt from the snow but i herd that it was also had to do with the breaks not stopping in time and flattening out the wheels.

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for anyone who is a rail fan this is shitty news....there were some great things housed in that museum....not that it seems anyone else around here cares but oh well....

By Jamie Stiehm Eric Siegel and Frederick N. Rasmussen

Sun Staff

Originally published February 18, 2003

The roof fell in on railroad history yesterday.

The landmark 1884 roundhouse - the center of the B&O Railroad Museum complex a few blocks west of Baltimore's Inner Harbor and one of the shrines of American railroading - lost half its roof under the weight of the weekend's snowfall.

The collapse created a gaping hole in the signature building and alarm about possible damage to the historic trains housed there. The damage also caused the indefinite closure of the museum, which attracts 160,000 visitors a year and boasts one of the most significant collection of railroad treasures in the world at a site billed as the birthplace of American railroading.

"I've already cried a thousand tears," said Courtney B. Wilson, the B&O's executive director, as he stood beside the locked gate to the museum's compound. He said portions of the roof first caved in shortly after midnight yesterday and again a few hours later.

Railroad buffs shared Wilson's grief.

Herbert H. Harwood, a retired CSX executive and nationally known railroad historian and author, called the roundhouse "incomparable."

"It is truly a cathedral of transportation," said Harwood, who described it as "the largest circular industrial building in the world ... it really is symbolic of the late 19th century in that it's optimistic, looking forward and upward."

Yesterday afternoon, hours after the collapse, columns of mangled steel stuck out from the roundhouse at Pratt and Poppleton streets. Locomotives and passenger cars in the museum's collection, some dating from the 1830s, could be seen from street-level windows, covered with snow and debris.

Officials of the museum, which contains one of the world's most extensive train collections, were unable to enter the building to assess the harm to the trains or to the roundhouse itself.

To prevent deterioration to the roundhouse and further damage to the trains, a temporary cover will be placed over the roof when structural engineers determine it would be safe to do so, Wilson said. He said he hoped the roof could be repaired and that insurance would cover the cost.

In the meantime, trains may have to be moved, he said.

Wilson said he arrived at the museum amid swirling snow about 1 a.m., an hour after the first section of the slate roof collapsed.

"To have a hole that big in the middle of the night was a tough thing to look at," he said.

Dismayed, he returned to his home in Locust Point a few hours later only to receive a second call around dawn: a second, larger section of the roof had caved in.

A neighbor who lives on Pratt Street didn't see what happened - but heard it.

"I went downstairs to make a pot of coffee, and I heard a crumbling noise," Barbara Wrightsman said. "My husband told me it was the roundhouse."

The roundhouse - one of five historic structures in the B&O Railroad Museum complex - opened in 1884 as a facility to build and repair passenger cars. The historic building, including the roof, was restored in the mid-1970s at a cost of about $1.5 million.

Besides housing historic trains - including a replica of the Tom Thumb built in 1927 - the roundhouse is a popular site for events such as political fund-raisers and private receptions. The museum's black-tie gala was set for March 1 in the roundhouse but will now have to be moved.

The museum - on the site of Mount Clare, the first train station in the United States - was founded 50 years ago and is completing a 16-month celebration of the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1827.

Designed by Ephraim Francis Baldwin, a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad architect, the roundhouse's circular shape comes from 22 sides of equal size. It stands 123 feet from the floor to the top of the gold cupola, which survived the collapse.

The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, has 45,000 square feet of space and takes up nearly an acre of ground. Among the roundhouse's distinguishing characteristics is a 60-foot wooden turntable inside the structure that was used to turn railroad cars.

It also has two pitches of roofs - the lower of which collapsed - and high windows to let in lots of light.

According to an early history published by the museum, the "roof section is hung onto an iron ring supported by iron struts which tie into the tops of 22 supporting columns."

James D. Dilts, a Baltimore-based railroad and architectural historian, said he was surprised that the roof collapsed.

"I thought that the structure was pretty solid," he said.

So did Wilson, the museum's executive director, who said he had no idea the roof was vulnerable.

"It's been here since 1884. That's a long time with a lot of snow," he said.

An event planned for the museum for Thursday on the building by the B&O of the Russian czar's railroad from Moscow to St. Petersburg will go on as scheduled, but at a different location.

A since-demolished station on the site of the museum complex received Samuel Morse's historic telegraphed message from the Capitol in Washington on May, 24, 1844: "What hath God wrought?"

It was a question that was on the minds of many yesterday as they surveyed the roundhouse.

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im hearing about roofs collapsing almost daily in jersey,maryland and virginia. i guess 25 inches of snow, then 40 degree weather then 3 inches of rain on top of it is makin that shit mad heavy. shit from now on im gonna start wearing an army helmet when i go shopping.

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some old ass engines, so old some of them were wooden, which is why they crumpled when the roof fell in..

luckily the round house is only a part of the museum..there is also a huge outdoor section with plenty of old cars and engines to enjoy..

since my car and rib cage were smashed in, i havent been over there, so i don't know if its back open, but the place will MOS-DEFinitely survive..

the blizzard just wreaked some havoc...

the snow was so bad actually, it only has just now melted totally away..a month later..

i was completely in shambles physically during the blizzard, which i thought was tragic since i missed out on the insane street bombing..however, i felt a little relieved when my homies told me how bad it really was..trudging up to walls only to find that the snow had drifted up so high it was tough to even do a fillin ..oh well.

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